University change management challenges
Discuss about the Underpinning Change Process At SSU.
To continue to triumph in a progressively complex, volatile and ambiguous tertiary sector, and to release strategic purpose and vision, it is important that SSU increasingly reviews and refreshes its policies, strategies, structures, technologies, processes, and culture (Hill, Jones and Schilling, 2014, pp. 173). As such, a change should not be thought of as a point in time event, but rather a constantly ongoing course with a continuous, and frequently time complex, patterns of transitions leading up to, and following on from change (Dawson and Andriopoulos, 2014, pp. 82).
All individuals experience change in their daily lives. Underpinning all the change process at SSU is the aim to make sure the institute is well positioned to accomplish its future objective, and that it realises its obligations as per the university rules and guidelines. In its broadest sense, change denotes to the process through which something becomes diverse. For instance, change that one may experience at SSU include fluctuating budgets and funding, an advance of the business process, participating in the organisation review, improving policy, adopting new research methodology and implementing new technology (Cummings and Worley, 2014, pp. 147).
The extent of any change can be impacted by the breadth of reach within the organisation, the period of change action, change disruption and the driving forces behind the change. Within the broader framework of change, the term organisation change has a very specific focus at SSU and refers to considerable workplace change (Benn, Edwards and Williams, 2014, pp. 103). The SSU change process outline the fundamental principles, implementation phases, consultation needs, and workers transition options connected with the organisation change at the institute.
Universities are focused to participate in a strategic planning procedure by a range of force. These comprise progressively call from higher education with a drop in government backing, shifting student demographics and want to strive with the emerging simulations of higher education while preserving the essence of an outdated comprehensive university model (Botha, Kourie and Snyman, 2014, pp. 116). If the present trends endure, more than one-third of the Australian pursuing to enrol at SSU will be unable to do so by the year 2020. Subsequently, to avoid such results, university needs to make key structural adjustment in the decision making systems and reallocate scarce possessions. University should chase greater task differentiation to restructure their service and better react to the shifting requirement of the constituencies (Botha, Kourie and Snyman, 2014, pp. 116).
Change management processes in universities
Consumer: Student’s demographic make is varying. As the number of Australian and foreigners increase over the next era, the university will have no distinct racial mainstream group. Additionally, half of the learner attending classes will increase as older students return to the institute to get post-undergraduate degrees. Looking for the best situations for the victory of all its varied students, SSU needs to offer schooling that will permit graduates to fully partake in a diverse culture dedicated to democratic standards (Botha, Kourie and Snyman, 2014, pp. 116).
Government: the government is still discussing on the drives of the higher educations and who is entitled to the access. At the same time, institutes, and specifically SSU, are confronted to release their duty to offer affordability, make sure worth though maximum care to the learning and teaching routine, and offer indication for their outcomes. Public colleges’ portion of the state financial plan is dropping and also operating cost per student in higher education is escalating (Botha, Kourie and Snyman, 2014, pp. 116).
Consumer: demand for higher education is experienced to sharply upsurge over the succeeding decade. Additionally, the proportion of the population and the expected population growth that will attend university will also increase. As more individuals know that university degree is crucial to the financial well-being, desire for the higher education will rise.
Novel models of higher education: the novel framework of offering higher education has arisen in the current ages. The gap between what traditional universities offer and the public wants is advancing. Changes in the education needs, unmet by the present system, have stimulated the development of for-profit expediency universities. The new model view students as consumer, target specific functions and provide schedules convenient for the users. Thus, SSU should find a way to deal with such new rivalry. However, the institution of higher education cannot entirely move away from the provider-motivated framework to a consumer-focused practice. SSU ought to deliberate student preferences for realistic education and the broad labour market (Hamilton and Webster, 2015, pp. 71).
Economic alteration: Australia’s economy has experienced an intense modification in the previous 20 years. The fundamental economic development, high tech-based businesses, and hiring well-learned persons will change easily among employers and careers. Australian, who lacks sufficient competencies and education important across the profession paths, particularly those without minimally a university degree, will be at the weakness side, in terms of earning capacity, employment prospects and high unemployment proportions (Hamilton and Webster, 2015, pp. 71).
Assessment: Evaluating readiness to change
Change management processes is the patterns of phases that management of change follow to modify in order to motivate individuals shifts and ensuring the project meets its planned results (Booth, 2015, pp. 75).
To begin, assessment is techniques used by the change management group to evaluate the establishment’s promptness to change. Willingness may comprise history, employee, sponsor and change evaluations. Each instrument offers the project squad with visions into the tasks and opportunity they may encounter during the change course. Secondly, numerous leaders assume that if they address openly with their workers, their exertion is complete. But, there are countless aims why staffs may not comprehend what leaders are saying for the first time. Thus, communication design begins with a thoughtful study of the listeners, central messages and the programing for those messages (Bratton and Gold, 2017, pp. 114).
The change management frontrunners must scheme a communication approach that communicates the requirement of forefront workers, executives, and controllers. Thirdly, business managers and executes plays an important role in timing the change. The change management group must improve a strategy for sponsor actions (Hayes, J., 2014, pp. 90). Fourthly, supervisors and managers play an important role in managing changes ultimately; the leaders have more effect on a staff’s motivation than any other individuals. Unluckily, the leaders can be the hardest group to persuade of the requirement for modification and be a source of opposition. It is important for the change movement group and executive sponsors to have the backing of the supervisors and managers (Ceptureanu, 2015, pp. 30).
Individual change control should be utilised to assist these leaders with the change course. Once the supervisors and managers are on the board, the transformation management group must arrange an approach to equip leaders to effectively teach their workers through the variation. They will require offering exercise and guideline for the leaders including on how to use discrete change management gears with their workers (Cascio, 2018, pp. 63).
Training is the basis for building awareness about the variation and the needed abilities to prosper in the forthcoming state. Safeguarding the influenced individuals get the training they require at the appropriate time is a key duty of change management (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2017, pp. 209). This depicts that training should only be provided after phases have been taken to ensure influenced workers have the cognizance of the desires for change and the wish to aid the change. Change managing and group leaders will advance training need centered on the knowledge, talents, and behaviours essential to execute the variation. This exercise requirement will be a preliminary point for the training team to improve and provide training platforms (Harrison and Lock, 2017, pp. 92).
Communication planning: Designing a communication approach
Additionally, resistance from the managers and employees is normal and proactively communicated (Kaufman, 2017, pp. 26). Insistent resistances can hamper the project execution. The change managing squad requires identifying, comprehending and assisting front-runners to accomplish resistance in the institute (Rahim, 2017, pp. 8). Similarly, handling change is not only one direction; workers participation is important part of management of change
Change leaders can analyses reaction and execute a remedial action grounded on this comment to make sure full implementation of the changes. Early adopting, triumph and long-term win ought to be known and celebrated. Group and individual’s acknowledgment is an important aspect of change managing to support the organisation modification. Continuous adoption requires to be checked to ensure workers do not slide back to ancient ways of doing work (Ceptureanu, 2015, pp. 29).
The last step in the change managing is the after act appraisal. At this juncture, the leaders can stay back from the whole plan, assess the failures and success, and pinpoint practice changes for the subsequent task. This is part of the nonstop development of change management for the institute and eventually leads to modification ability (Geisler and Wickramasinghe, 2015, pp. 63).
Looking critically at the change process at the SSU, one will notice various actions in two departments. Both sections of the institute have the same approach to encountering the change in their respective department. To begin, the faculty of art and engineering both are striving to accomplish the new vision of VC in their sections. Also, both professors in their respective department, they are trying to address the areas where the university performed below the set standards. Quality and quantity of academic performance were the common themes in two departments of the SSU. Both professors communicated the issue of strengthening the transparency and accountability in decision making. And finally, both departments were involved in the formation of work party’s reports (Bratton and Gold, 2017, pp. 117).
However, the two sections show some differences in the way they approach the change process. For instance, the faculty of arts had a factor of inclusivity of all the teams in the work party while the engineering faculty lacked the components. Engagement and involvements were part of change processes in the faculty of arts while the engineering lacked the elements. Faculty of arts had four working party and employees contributed hugely to the process of the change. However, in the engineering, only three parties were involved and lacked feedback from the key players of the actions. Arts department had a broad consultation and communication was a core aspect of the process while the engineering sections lacked communication and consultation (Y?lmaz and K?l?ço?lu, 2013, pp. 18).
Sponsorship: Developing a strategy for sponsor actions
The faculty of art showed the highly significant in the employer-employee line in the operation while the other department lacked the essence of the connection. Voluntary action as result of employee satisfaction was highly noted in the faculty of arts while the engineering department, lack of voluntary decisions was seen such as forced resignation. As earlier mentioned, funding is vital in the change process. Thus, the department of art noticed the aspect of funding while engineering department never considered the resource to push the agenda.
With the degree of technological progression and the worldwide economy, change is now the usual condition of a business. Managers of the change frequently blame their disappointment in workers and middle managers resting to change (Y?lmaz and K?l?ço?lu, 2013, pp. 17). More often, senior managers overestimate how much change they enforce on the organisation. Some also do not apprehend how much adjustment they can force on the business. While others do not know how hard is to lead and execute change efficiently. Therefore, the following is kind of resistance the VC of SSU might face in future
Job security or loss of status: naturally, employees cannot make changes that might be detrimental to the present condition. In an organisation situation, personnel, peers, and leaders will resist managerial and technological variations that will cause their role being compacted or eliminated (Malik and Masood, 2015, pp. 105).
Poor aligned reward system: the institute shareholders will resist modification when they do not get any recompenses. Without a return, there is no inspiration for the team to upkeep change over a long term. This denotes that SSU reward schemes must be changed in some direction to aid the change that one desires to implement.
Anxiety of the unknown: the little SSU teams know about the transformation and its effect on them, the more awful they will be.
Irrespective of reserved or liberal ways, people still need societal being. SSU backers will resist change to defend the group’s interest. It is not surprising to see some team members resisting change so as to protect their colleagues. As the psychologist Maslow Abraham noted, “the need to belong to a group is a powerful need in the workstation” (Y?lmaz and K?l?ço?lu, 2013, pp. 17). If any change impends theses workstation communal bond, some of the team associates may resist change energy.
An environment of distrust: significant SSU change does not have to happen in a situation of distrust. If the university is trying to execute change in a situation where most of the individual working will doubt each other, the VC will have restricted success.
Training: Building awareness and necessary skills
The company politics: some members repel change as a radical approach to indicate the individual leading revolution is not up to the chore. Others will resist proving that the decision is wrong and is meant to fail. Another part of individuals will resist because they will lose some influence in the organisation and they are dedicated to seeing the change struggle collapse (Y?lmaz and K?l?ço?lu, 2013, pp. 17).
Fear of letdown: imminent changes on the occupation can cause group supporters to question if they possess abilities to perform their responsibilities.
Faulty implementation approach due to poor timing or lack of tact: unwarranted resistance can happen because modifications are presented in an incentive way or at the wrong time. SSU team members can come to an agreement with the change that one wants to implement but they cannot agree with how one is going about making the change.
It is evident that the efforts by the university’s new VC to initiate and implement change within the institution are bound to fail. That has been witnessed in the faculty of engineering, architecture and environmental sciences. Most employees within the faculty have cited lack of consultation, fear of losing jobs and lack of communication as the reason behind resistance (Hayes, 2014, pp. 94).
Therefore, as an OD practitioner with vast knowledge and experience, I would advise the university’s management including the VC, Executive head faculty of arts and Executive head faculty of engineering, architecture and environmental sciences to plan manage the change process carefully, effectively and efficient (Hill, Jones and Schilling, 2014, pp. 171). That can be achieved through proper analysis of the organisation to understand the need for change, engaging the entire workforce and allowing them to give their views on the proposed change process, consulting widely and putting into consideration the employees input and views, clarifying any issue of concern, communicating effectively, relating well with the employees, negotiating with the resisting group in the faculty of engineering, architecture and environmental sciences carefully. Finally, deciding on the way to execute the change process based on consensus (Y?lmaz and K?l?ço?lu, 2013, pp. 17).
Conclusion
Change is very important element that helps the organisations like SSU to develop by adjusting to the modern world. The report seeks to understand the efforts by the new SSU’s VC to initiate and implement a new strategic plan with a vision of transforming the university to be among the top 100 universities in the world. Unfortunately, the approach used to initiate change within the institution is bound to fail as a result of poor change management skills and techniques leading to resistance. Therefore, the VC and the whole management must follow the recommendations covered in the report to steer the organisation’s management in implementing its strategic plan by countering employee resistance. By doing so, the employees will embrace change by being part of the change implementation process.
Resistance management: Identifying, understanding and addressing resistance
In achieving an effective change management course, the institutions management should plan and execute the change process keenly. Hence, any poorly managed change process is bound to fail due to employees’ resistance as witnessed in the case of SSU’s new VC. Nevertheless, a number of recommendations have been identified to help the SSU’s management to professionally manage resistance and persuade the employees to embrace change. Effective communication is important in managing change. Employee engagement, involvement and consultation is also a better way of avoiding employee resistance. A good employer-employee relationship is key in ensuring a successful change management process. Negotiation and rewards can motivate employees to embrace change. Therefore, the university’s management should consider the impact of these recommendations to counter the resistance posed by the employees in the faculty of engineering, architecture and environmental sciences which in turn will drive a successful change management process.
References
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Booth, S. A. (2015). Crisis management strategy: Competition and change in modern enterprises. Routledge, pp. 67-80.
Botha, A., Kourie, D., & Snyman, R. (2014). Coping with continuous change in the business environment: Knowledge management and knowledge management technology. Elsevier, pp. 111-124.
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Hayes, J., 2014. The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 89-98.
Hill, C.W., Jones, G.R. and Schilling, M.A., 2014. Strategic management: theory: an integrated approach. Cengage Learning, pp.167-177.
Kaufman, H., 2017. The limits of organizational change. Routledge, pp. 20-32.
Kerzner, H. and Kerzner, H.R., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons, pp.201-214
Malik, S.Z. and Masood, S., 2015. Emotional Intelligence and Resistance to Change: Mediating role of Psychological Capital in Telecom Sector of Pakistan. Pakistan Journal of Commerce & Social Sciences, 9(2), pp. 102-108.
Rahim, M.A., 2017. Managing conflict in organizations. Routledge, pp. 5-10.
Y?lmaz, D. and K?l?ço?lu, G., 2013. Resistance to change and ways of reducing resistance in educational organizations. European journal of research on education, 1(1), pp.14-21.
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